APPENDIX VI

On the History of the Philosophical Chair since 1866

The time frame of this account coincides with the establishing, strengthening, working-out and reorganization of philosophical research at Marburg University, which already has its fixed and unequivocal place in the history of Philosophy as the “Marburg School.”

By the middle of the 19th century, the breakdown of the Hegelian school led to a general decline of philosophy. Within the confines of the contemporary, towering positive sciences (history and the natural sciences), philosophy altogether lost its prestige. Where it was well kept up, it took place in the midst of an ignorance and perversion of its proper essence. It was able to obtain validity before the predominant scientific consciousness by means of an assimilation of itself, which ran counter to itself, with the positive sciences as natural-scientific “philosophy” (psychology), that is, as philosophical history.

The uplifting renewal of scientific philosophy underway since the [18]60s undertook, even if in a groping way, to win back an understanding of the original philosophical problematic. The concern with the object, the manner of treatment, and the systematic unity of philosophy received decisive impetus and made fundamental advances through the research conducted at Marburg University. First of all, this [research] sought to secure once again the scientific essence of Philosophy by means of a new appropriation of Kant’s “critical” work. In fact, during the 60s, through the work of Ed. Zeller (Professor of Philosophy in Marburg, 1849-62), Otto Liebmann, Herm. Helmholtz and Fr. A. Lange (Ordinarius in Philosophy at Marburg, 1873-75), the call was loudly sounded: back to Kant! First, in his work Kant’s Theory of Experience (1871), H. Cohen had placed the re-appropriation of Kant that was already underway upon a scientifically decisive ground, and in so doing he influenced the subsequent playing-out of “Neo-Kantianism” in both a positive and a negative way. During this same time, two works appeared, W Dilthey’s Leben Schleiermachers I (1870) and Fr. Brentano’s Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt I (1874), in which tendencies other than a renewal of Kant were maintained.They became, however, the point of departure for Dilthey’s Lebensphilosophie, which was oriented with respect to the problem of Dasein’s historicality, and provided the impetus for the development of phenomenological research, which was grounded in [the work of] E. Husserl. In both instances, which today have systematically begun to be fused, the way was paved for the overcoming of Neo-Kantianism, indeed to such an extent that they encouraged the strengthening and reorganization of the “Marburg School.”

In his major philosophical work Geschichte des Materialismus (1865), Fr. A. Lange had assigned a fundamental philosophical meaning to Kant’s critical idealism, to the extent that in [Kant’s critical idealism], Materialism as “the simplest, regulative world view” must be overcome. Lange immediately knew the importance of Cohen’s work, based on an understanding of Kant he had laboriously worked out for himself, and he did not hesitate to insert a renewed examination into his own Kant interpretation. Lange arranged for Cohen’s habilitation in Marburg (November 1873). After Weißenborn’s death the following year, Cohen was the sole candidate to be nominated for Ordinarius. In fact, he did not get this appointment; but as of Easter 1875 he was appointed Extraordinarius Professor, and upon Lange’s death (November 1875) he assumed [Lange’s] Professorship, which he would hold until 1912. Following his appointment to Emeritus status, Cohen relocated to Berlin where, in addition to writing actively, he held lectures and classes at the Jewish theological academy there until his death (April 1918).